Autonomous vehicles are vehicles that are capable of navigating roads by sensing environment around the autonomous vehicles. The autonomous vehicles do not require human inputs. In contrast, semi-autonomous vehicles are vehicles that may occasionally require human inputs. Presently cruise control systems, adaptive cruise control systems, autonomous parking are available in the market. Although fully autonomous vehicles have been test driven, they have not yet been deployed in the market.
Smooth lane changing and overtaking manoeuvre are essential for safety and comfort of both driver and passengers. Human error is common in these critical actions. Perhaps this might be due to inaccurate or untimely interpretation of surrounding vehicle's information. Hence, there arises a need for autonomous or semi-autonomous vehicles that incorporate intelligent algorithms that easily executes these critical actions.
Presently attempts at incorporating intelligent algorithms to perform lane change and overtaking manoeuvre includes estimating current position and a moving direction of the autonomous vehicles using sensors and generating a path for changing the lane from the current position and the moving direction. But this attempt is dependent on the accuracy of the sensors. Hence, there is a need for a system which can provide feasibility of lane change based on clear view around the autonomous vehicle.